“But in the meantime, the simple story that unemployment insurance was the gravitational force pinning down the labor market and preventing a boom doesn’t seem to have panned out. And as for the states that decided to cut off aid early? That decision is looking increasingly pointless and cruel.”
“Unlike their STEM peers, Black and white humanities graduates earn about the same. How did that happen?”
“The shock of the explosion over Tall el-Hammam was enough to level the city, flattening the palace and surrounding walls and mudbrick structures”. See also: “The proposed airburst was larger than the 1908 explosion over Tunguska, Russia, where a ~ 50-m-wide bolide detonated with ~ 1000× more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb.” The Slacktivist gives you some historical and Biblical context for all this, and also a reason to be a little skeptical of the whole thing.
“A system like this rewards the best liars, the most sophisticated liars, or the people who have access to people willing to help them manipulate it.”
“Now, more than 10 months after the election, the country knows of at least five ways in which Trump attempted to retain power despite his defeat.”
“Anti-vaccine Facebook groups have a new message for their community members: Don’t go to the emergency room, and get your loved ones out of intensive care units.”
“It might seem like hyperbole to put LuLaRoe in the same category as a dangerous group like NXIVM — after all, MLM members are not getting their flesh seared with their leaders’ initials, nor are they forced to move to a rural commune in the woods. But “cults” don’t all wear the same cloak, and even so-called “normal” people can find themselves inveigled by one.”
RIP, Sissy Farenthold, Texas Democratic and progressive icon.
“Ignorance, by itself, is not bad faith — but persistence in ignorance is. And as more and more stories like these continue to make their way into the public domain, the persistence of the former president’s supporters in their ignorance ought to be called out for what it is: it’s their bad faith, too.”
“William Shatner’s Actually Pulling A Captain Kirk And Heading To Space On A Bezos Ship”.
I’m not sure we needed a Night Court sequel, but if it has John Larroquette in it, it can’t be too bad.
“It’s the essence of GOP grievance politics aimed squarely at the forehead of civic democracy.”
“This is the way forward. While masking and other precautions are very important until vaccination rates rise and daily case rates drop dramatically, the U.S. needs more people vaccinated to lower the rates of serious illness and death and clear out ICUs. Even so, a tiny minority of people will refuse, but for many more people who were genuinely just hesitating and being told it’s vaccination or your job, these requirements will work. They’re working already.”
RIP, Tommy Kirk, Disney star best known for Old Yeller.
“Instead of learning from those mistakes as we enter the Biden era, the new Times initiative seems to double down on its lost-cause obsession with wooing angry conservatives, like John Cusack holding up that boombox. Why?”
“The best you can say about this idiotic scheme is that it seems to be risk-free for Miami.”
Wait, Hannah Waddingham from “Ted Lasso” was Septa Unella from “Game of Thrones”, and she got to keep the “Shame!” bell? Mind blown.
It’s been Fat Bear Week, y’all. Meet the bears that make the week.
“Infowars host Alex Jones has lost two of several lawsuits filed against him by relatives of Sandy Hook victims after he routinely failed to comply with requests to produce documents related to his involvement in spreading lies about the deadly shooting.”